


Knowledge, Suspicion, Faith

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Although Eli hypothesises the plausibility of Rush/Young, Gen, No Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S1 Ep5 ‘Light’. Suspecting something and knowing it are not the same thing. TJ has her suspicions, and decides to act as a go-between to allow Rush and Young to come to an uneasy understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowledge, Suspicion, Faith

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve just started watching SGU, and this idea struck me as soon as I’d finished watching the episode. I have literally only seen these first five episodes (please no spoilers in comments thank you!), but I wanted to do this little fic exploring the characters as I currently see them. No doubt these will change and gain more depth the more I watch. 
> 
> And for the record, I have no idea why my fellow Brits and I randomly put the /f/ sound in ‘lieutenant’…

TJ wants to find out if Rush knew they’d be ok just as much as Young does, but if there’s one thing that she’s learned about this scientist, it’s that the more you push, the less you get. The more you show open suspicion, the more reason he gives you to suspect. He doesn’t make any move to defend himself when under scrutiny because he doesn’t feel he should have to defend himself, not because he doesn’t have a defence.

Colonel Young hasn’t quite grasped this concept yet, thinks TJ as she walks purposefully along in the direction of the console room. His mind is that of a military man, his thoughts are logical and clear-cut. He expects a yes or no answer to a yes or no question, and he hasn’t quite got it yet, that to a scientist’s mind there’s no such thing as a simple yes or no question, much less a simple yes or no answer. When Rush doesn’t give him an answer to a direct question, it’s not because he doesn’t have an answer – and Young is astute enough to know this, and this is where the trouble starts. It is, for the most part, just bloody-mindedness on the scientist’s part, TJ will admit that much. But it’s also because he has an answer but he can’t give it in the straight-forward format that Young wants, and he knows that the colonel won’t be satisfied with, or indeed trust, anything else. So Rush doesn’t bother, because if he keeps his mouth shut then Young will leave him alone to get on with whatever more important things he was doing than trying to explain the way his mind works to a disbelieving colonel.

Rush, for his part, has not quite grasped the concept of explaining complex science in laymen’s terms, nor the idea that Young needs something, anything to work with, not just stony, recalcitrant silence. The colonel is good at making the best of what he has, and if Rush were to offer up just a little bit of information, then Young would be able to work from it, and he’d leave him alone to figure out the rest.

At least, TJ thinks he would.

Being a lieutenant and a medic, TJ herself can see both sides of the equation – the military and the scientific – and so she accepts that she is the best person to act as a go-between for these two men until they can learn to stop being so obtuse and work together instead of against each other. Young and Rush just don’t understand each other, TJ thinks. It’s like there’s an impenetrable wall between them that neither is willing to try and scale or to chip away at. After all, TJ knows that it’s one of the most basic human impulses – we do not like what we do not understand.

TJ feels a sudden anger. She just wants to knock their two heads together and yell at them that together, they are responsible for everyone on this ship and can they please just get along?

She reaches the console room and enters. She doesn’t say anything; Rush knows she’s there and he’ll talk when he’s ready. No use in her saying her piece if he’s not listening.

“Hello Lieutenant,” he says eventually, and TJ smiles unseen, because she knows he’s tired and so his guard might be down a bit. It’s a tell of his, everyone has them. He’s slipped back into the British pronunciation of her rank, with the inexplicable /f/ sound thrown in.

“Did you suspect?” she asks straight out.

Rush’s fingers still on the console.

“I thought you told the colonel to let it go, and yet here you are, asking exactly the same question.”

“Not the same question,” TJ replies levelly. “He asked you if you _knew_. That implies a solid, proven fact with demonstrable evidence. I’m asking you if you _suspected_. That implies a hunch that has yet to be proven correct or incorrect.”

Rush looks at her over his shoulder, then turns his back to the console completely. TJ’s learning to read this mysterious man quite well. Since he’s stopped what he’s doing and his giving her his full attention, he actually thinks, by some miracle, that what she has to say is important.

“You’re remarkably astute,” he says. “Yes, I suspected we’d be all right. I still don’t understand this ship but I suspect she never does anything without good reason.” He fingers the console behind him. “She switched off every system except life support. She was trying to keep us alive. Having gone to that trouble, it then made no sense for her to let us die in a blazing inferno. So yes, I suspected. But I couldn’t exactly prove it beyond blind faith in this ship.”

TJ nods. She understands, even if she doesn’t share his faith. Scott and so many others have blind faith in God. Why shouldn’t Rush have blind faith in Destiny? Ok, so it’s an Ancient spaceship that’s falling to bits and does unexpected things for near inexplicable reasons, and Rush is the only one who seems to understand it, but it hasn’t let him down yet.

He turns back to the console; their conversation is closed but TJ’s got enough. She goes to find Young.

The colonel’s face is still and unreadable as TJ reiterates what Rush told her, and he stays silence a long time after she finishes speaking.

“He still should have told me,” he says eventually.

“Would it have made any difference, sir?” TJ asks. “It was only a suspicion. You can’t work from suspicion, sir, you can only work from facts.”

The colonel looks as I he’s going to say something else, something about it being a matter of principle, or of giving people hope, boosting morale. TJ can see the words falling over themselves in his mind. But that’s a discussion he’ll have to have with Rush himself. TJ can act as a go-between now, but she won’t be a complete substitute for them actually communicating like adults.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he says eventually. “Dismissed.”

X

TJ returns to her duties. She’s not quite sure what happens after that, if anything happens, but she knows however grimly that she’ll be the first to know if something drastic occurs. The longer her radio is silent, the longer Rush and Young are being civilised towards each other, or ignoring each other completely. TJ’s happy with either scenario. At least the air is clearer now.

As she joins the others in the mess, Scott and Eli are discussing the very same topic.

“Sometimes I think the only way to get them to see sense would be to lock them in a cupboard for a day and force them to work it out,” Scott suggests.

“Well, we all know that there are only two possible plausible outcomes for that scenario,” Eli says. “We’ll come back to find they’ve killed each other with their bare hands or they’re snogging each other senseless.”

Naturally, this earns various expressions of disbelief and disgust from around the table.

“Oh come on!” Eli continues. “It’s a classic movie trope! Boy meets girl – or man meets man, in this case – and there’s a spark of mutual attraction, and they proceed to absolutely loathe each other until they end up in a situation where they’re forced to admit their feelings.”

TJ joins in the ensuing laughter, and her radio remains blessedly silent.

The next day, though, she joins Scott in scouting out suitable cupboards. Just in case.


End file.
